I have written regularly on Iraq since August, 2002 analyzing the situation with historical perspective and assessing future developments , which have generally stood the test of time . I had a ringside view of 1991 Gulf war from Amman (1989-92 ) and moved to Ankara (1992-98, earlier spell 1969-73), with concurrent accreditation to Baku ,with earlier postings at Cairo and Algiers in 1960s and France in early1970s. Apart from Turkey and Jordan, I headed Indian missions in Romania and Senegal.

Out of over 250 in depth online articles , over 80 pieces are on the Iraq war and the region . The key articles are listed below with URLs and can be easily accessed .

Atimes pieces ( 60 ) were on average copied by scores of websites all around the world including of US universities ; New York, Columbia, Colorado, California ,Utah etc ,think tanks and websites from rightist 'Free Republic " to leftist Salon.com, "Zmag" etc and in other western countries, Turkish ,Kurdish , Arab ,Armenian, Greek and Serbian websites ,as well in Israel , Asia , Africa and all over the Islamic world from Kyrgyzstan to Nigeria and Indonesia to Morocco. Atimes has a Chinese edition too. The articles have been translated into Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, French, German, Italian , Spanish , Danish , Russian , Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese etc .

I have been frequently interviewed by BBC Hindi Radio program , on Turkey, Iraq, Russia , Caucasus , Central Asia etc .Also by Slovenian National TV and Realitatea of Bucharest, Star and Sahara in India.

I spoke on the Flouting of International Law and Failure of International Institutions along with George Galloway, British MP and Cynthia Mckinny, six times US Congresswoman , at the Kuala Lumpur International Conference to Criminalize War and War Crimes Tribunal – 28 October to 30 October, 2009. It related to war crimes committed in Iraq and elsewhere

An entire region from Jordan to Iran is on the brink of catastrophe as it awaits one man's decision on how he will pursue his family' vendetta .India's former Ambassador to Jordan looks inside the Pandora's box which George Bush holds in his hands- Editor Atimes

(Written when George W Bush along with old chieftains and neo-cons handed over by his father were beginning to beat the war drums )

For the Bush family, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is the tempting Apple in the Middle Eastern Garden of Eden. The results of succumbing to the temptation to take a bite could be as disastrous as they were for Adam and Eve.

"When there is a general change of conditions, it is as if the entire creation had been changed and the whole world been altered." - Ibn Khaldun "History is but glorification of murderers and robbers." - Karl Popper

BUCHAREST - It is the afternoon sun that dazzles onlookers though it is past its prime. That sums up the height of US power before last September 11. If the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki without fear of retaliation was the acme of the American Century, then the attacks on the WorldTradeCenter and the Pentagon, symbols of economic and military might, could be termed the beginning of the end of the American Century.

The US administration led by President George W Bush, with loyal support from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has waged a personalized war on Saddam Hussein for months. Armadas of battleships and massive war-making machines are now moving towards Iraq, and military exercises are covered daily in the international press.4. MIDDLE EAST- Iraqi Mosaic in Pandora's Box17 February, 2003 www.saag.org/papers7/paper607.html

Iraq is a delicate mosaic, which must be handled carefully, but a US led war would shatter and scatter it to bits.

Whenever post Saddam Hussein Iraq is discussed in USA and elsewhere, not enough serious thought is given to ethnic, religious and other differences of its constituents and their tortuous history, which go to make Iraq a delicate mosaic.

Veni, vidi, vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered") spoke Julius Caesar in 78 BC at a town called Zile, 300 kilometers northeast of Ankara, after victory in a battle lasting barely four hours over Pharnaces II, son of Mithradates VI of Pontus. Mithradates the Great (meaning "gift of the Aryan god Mithra"), a common name among Anatolian rulers, had contested Imperial Rome's hegemony in Asia Minor.

Of course, the self-styled successors of Imperial Rome, the hawks in the US administration, had hoped to emulate Caesar after a few days of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the cities of Basra, Baghdad and Kirkuk. But the reality has been quite disillusioning - even to the point of bringing some "Shock and Awe" home to the States.

Written soon after the US appointed Iraqi governing council , with historic parallel to British regime established by Sir Percy Cox after the First World War. It ended in the assassination of King Feisel and his detested PM Nuri-el Said ending the Hashemite line in Iraq.

Many disquieting messages have been sent with the two car bombings in Istanbul on Thursday, just five days after attacks on two synagogues and coinciding with Queen Elizabeth's hosting of United States President George W Bush in London

In an era of nation states based on patriotism and shared history, people just hate occupying powers. While Vietnam's example and its people's fight for freedom and making it a quagmire for US forces has been talked about, Iraq's comparison with post World War II Germany and Japan shows little historic understanding. The ground situation and the evolution of the war for independence in Muslim, Arab, and till now secular Iraq, is closer to the wars of independence in Algeria and Turkey.

Illegal and most ill prepared project .It is becoming quite obvious every day .Hamid al-Kifai, a spokesman for the United States-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, in rejecting on January 12 a call made by Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that general elections be held ahead of a power transfer to Iraqis, has opened the way for even more uncertainty and unrest following the decision to create a Kurdish federal area in the country.

"Demand a broader view." BBC – "-of 840 experts interviewed on American news programmes during the invasion of Iraq, only four opposed the war "BBC-DG Dyke. How ever, BBC itself gave in its over all coverage a mere 2% time to opposition's anti-war voices, -- according to Media Tenor; a Bonn-based non-partisan media research organization.

12. Iraq: A perplexing predicament10 June, 2004www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF10Ak01.html Finally, after ignoring the United Nations and diminishing it before the illegal invasion of Iraq in March last year, the United States, faced with the prospect of the unraveling of its ill-planned project in Iraq and the Greater Middle East, has turned to the world body to give its occupation some sense of legality. In the end, the UN Security Council's members obviously acknowledged that the strategic implications of a substantial US failure in Iraq were too serious even to contemplate.

"It was by force that the sons of Osman seized the sovereignty and Sultanate of the Turkish nation; they have maintained this usurpation for six centuries. Now, the Turkish nation has rebelled and has put a stop to these usurpers and has effectively taken sovereignty and Sultanate in its own hands." Kemal Ataturk .The post-June 30 government being assembled for Iraq is likely to be as unpopular within the country as the now defunct US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. ED

Before returning home, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was in Ankara in mid-July to mend Israel's deteriorating relations with Turkey, said, "I was reassured of the continuity and stability of relations." --And if the US were forced to withdraw, even with a face-saving solution with help from the international community, it might then look for a scapegoat. If Israel wants to play a role in creating an independent Kurdistan, it would become a willing tool in the regional balance, at US behest. --But such a development would be inimical to Turkey and would not be accepted.

The United States claims that attacks on the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar - home to Turkey's ethnic cousins, the Turkmens - were to root out terrorists. Others say that the US has unwittingly been drawn into a devious Kurdish plot. Either way, Ankara has warned the US in no uncertain terms to lay off: this is a pot not to be stirred Editor

In ancient days, before the start of a battle, warriors galloped up to enemy front lines and challenged them. That seemed to be the purpose of the last Osama bin Laden video released just before 2ndNovember presidential polls in USA. Just in case; Laden wanted to make sure that President George W. Bush was re-elected. But then, even Sen. John Kerry had promised more of the same, but along with allies, mostly Christian nations

A debate is raging inside Iraq, Washington and Moscow and in neighbouring capitals and elsewhere whether the polls scheduled for next January to elect a Constituent Assembly for Iraq should be held or postponed, with various parties taking different positions. While USA, the Iraqi government appointed by it and Iraq's Shiite leadership are insistent on sticking to the date, Iraq's Sunnis, many Sunni governments in the region, Europe Union and Russia are opposed to it and have suggested postponement. Even if the elections were held as scheduled, would it solve Iraq's problems and keep it a united country?

There is much media focus on the inauguration of US President George W Bush for his second term, as well as the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 30. But the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk in north Iraq remains a dangerous tinderbox. Even the losing US presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, who voted against the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as the next secretary of state in the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, felt compelled to warn of possible turmoil in Kirkuk, which has been a bone of contention between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens - Turkey's ethnic cousins, with Ankara taking up their cause regularly.

On February 13, soon after the announcement of provisional results of 30 January elections for Iraq's new Parliament, Turkey said that the results failed to ensure a fair representation for all ethnic groups and called for measures to compensate for flaws and irregularities in the electoral process. The Kurdish alliance of Kurdish Democratic party (KDP) and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) won over 25% of the vote , giving it a kingmaker's role . It has already suggested 72 year old Jalal Talbani ,PUK leader , for the President's post .The alliance is likely to join with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) , which is supported by the religious establishment and won over 47% of the votes. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's slate got 14% votes, while the slate of President Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni managed only 2%.

"Just you wait until we have democracy in Iraq, and I'll throw you in jail!", said one lifelong opponent of Saddam Hussein to another at the Iraqi opposition conference in London organised to promote his 'heirs' by the Anglo-Saxons in December , 2002 ," and to bring about stability, rule of law and democracy in Iraq." That the conference did take place was an achievement in itself. Many a times the proceedings degenerated into scenes from the film "Lawrence of Arabia " with the Arab tribes squabbling and fighting after reaching Damascus following the with drawl of the Ottoman forces in the First World War in the wake of the military onslaught led by the British General Allenby , with guerilla support from Arab tribes of Sharif Hussein of Hijaj .

Bush offers old wine in old bottles; To uplift his sinking popularity and avoid becoming a lame duck President, six months after his second inauguration, on the first anniversary of the sham transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, President George W. Bush offered nothing new to the Americans or the Iraqis - more of the same. Addressing the nation from FortBragg military base in North Carolina, Bush called for staying the course ( and going overboard the Niagara falls of Iraq as some critics said long ago ). An emotive defence institution was chosen again to tap patriotic fervour and rally the military, which is becoming uneasy at the falling home support for the war in Iraq. Ironically, Bush himself avoided military duty in Vietnam.

"The nation-state offers most of its members a stronger sense of security, belonging or affiliation and even personal identity, than does any alternative large group" - Karl Deutch.

It has been said that democracy is not only a form of state and administration but a philosophy of life and an outlook. And for a nation's constitution to manifest the authority of the state and its laws, it must be bas2ed on a general agreement among all its citizens.

"It's all about justifying the US invasion"- A top Swiss legal expert The charade trial of illegally toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by yet another Western organized Kangroo court finally opened under a veil of secrecy on 19 October and was adjourned to 28 November. Saddam Hussein was defiant and claimed that he was the legitimate President of Iraq as he had done when he was first charged in July, 2004. (TRIAL OF SADDAM HUSSEIN & THE RULE OF LAW www.saag.org/papers11/paper1046.html ) He and six co-defendants are accused of killing 143 people after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on him in 1982. Western media was miffed at the show of defiance by the combative and aggressive former Iraqi leader.

"Democracy is not alone a form of state and of administration. It is a philosophy of life and an outlook on the world. The authority of the state and its law is derived from general agreement among citizens upon the main postulates of philosophy of life". President Masaryk.

Ten days after allegations of wide spread fraud , Iraq's Election Commission on 24 October declared that the referendum had ratified the Constitution as in the third province of Nineveh, out of 18 provinces , only 55 % voted against it .If it were 2 /3rd the Constitution would have collapsed.

01/18/06 "ICH" -- -- The ramifications of US franchised torture and street revolutions in Serbia, Georgia ,Ukraine , Kyrgyzstan et al are not going to go away . The recent fence-mending visit to Washington by the newly sworn in right wing German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overshadowed by human right violations and torture at US base in Guantanamo and rendition of terrorism suspects to prisons in Europe and elsewhere by CIA.

"This young century will be liberty's century and Iraq and Afghanistan were poised to become examples for the rest of the Middle East of peaceful, democratic societies, Gorge Bush told the UN General Assembly ,

"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state" — Noam Chomsky

On the 3rd anniversary of the US led illegal invasion of Iraq, a number of comments have appeared in Western media, saying I told you so . Many have been consistent in their views .But many changed the course midway , some remarking that the operation to colonise Iraq should have been better planned and executed , sitting in their plush corporate financed think tanks and media offices .They remain out of touch with the reality on the ground .

27. The Great Western Demnology Circus: Now the Halabja ShowApril 10, 2006

Western leaders and in house corporate and subservient media, continue to line up one show after another. Soon after the death of Serbian nationalist hero Slobodan Milosevic's death in western custody, which ended his trial ( the Hague tribunal did not even allow him to be treated in Moscow ), another third world leader has been put on trial ,Charles Taylor of Liberia . Just a little side show.

"War is too serious a matter to be left to Generals" or to civilians who have never seen a battlefield.

The retired generals' revolt only highlights the malaise in the US polity which has crept in , specially in recent decades. The disconnect between an arrogant, ill informed Administration and the military executors of its policies in Iraq has opened a Pandora's box which hopefully might become the tipping point for much needed changes in US polity.

06/20/06 "Information Clearing House" In an excellent recent piece 'Nightmare Scenario' in the respected US magazine 'The Nation ', Nicholas von Hoffman ,speculates that the badly outnumbered American expeditionary force in Iraq , now in danger of being trapped in spite of all its firepower, could possibly face some kind of a military defeat.

Already the number of US soldiers dead has crossed 2500 and counting ; two per day , with tens of thousands maimed and injured.

07/10/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Noam Chomsky's comments on the" Israel lobby 'in US article by two respected US university professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt hit the nail on the head ,where in he points out that US and Israel interests coincide in the West's policy to control hydrocarbon energy resources ie petroleum and gas, ever since the emergence of its importance in warfare and economy. Chomsky points out how western energy corporations have flourished with "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" with "the Middle East (ME) their leading cash cow."

11/24/06 "Information Clearing House" --- - A 15th century Ottoman Sultan Murat II arranged for Mehmet II , not the favourite son , to be trained in the art of governing at the capital city Edirne ,under an able Grand Vizier. Mehmet II had been a wild and disobedient brat, so Murat II advised his teacher use of the rod , which was done to good effect. A Sunni, Sultan Mehmet II fell under the unwholesome influence of a Shia cleric, fought with the Grand Vizier and the military Janissaries rebelled. Before Mehmet II could create further mess, Murat II returned from Manisa, where he had retired for spiritual pursuits and took back the reins of the empire.

The Moving Finger Writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit, Shall lure it back to Cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. –Omar Khayam

It took the US Congress 3 years, after the Washington led illegal invasion of Iraq against world opinion, to establish on March 15, 2006 , a bipartisan Commission, the Iraq Study Group (ISG), to salvage something from the bloody Iraqi quagmire. There is now a full fledged civil war with Iraq slipping towards breakup, under US led occupation.

"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy By K Gajendra Singh

01/01/07 "Information Clearing House" -- -- When the powerful US Vice-President Dick Cheney made a rare long haul to Riyadh in November , reportedly it was to create against Iran , Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon , a new US led Sunni alliance in the region, composed of the six Gulf Co-operation Council states, pro-US Arab governments in Cairo and Amman and willing NATO allies with covert support from Israel.

---The break up of US-Saud-Wahab nexus will release the Muslim masses kept chained to backward ideas and usher in modern education, science , new ideas and progress to face the West.

"The world seeks America's leadership, looks for leadership for a country whose values are freedom and justice and equality." Texas Governor George W. Bush in 2000.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, overthrown after the US led illegal invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 , against UN Charter and world opinion , became an other victim of 'Old West Justice' exercised by European colonizers and Americans ( against Red Indians and Blacks ) during the last few centuries . He was hanged on 30 December morning in Baghdad under US occupation by Washington controlled government of exiles, quislings, embezzlers and war lords.

35. Texan Poker Bluff and Persian Chess Moves21 January, 2007

"The arrogance of military power has led to a grave crisis - and to a decline of the United States' role and influence." Mikhail Gorbachev."The president is living in a dream world,'' US Sen. Barbara Boxer.

On Iran , US Administration has reached the pre-Iraq invasion rhetoric level of 2003 , when against the UN Charter and world opinion ,President George Bush decided to invade Iraq after having assembled a naval armada and air and land forces in the region ,cheerlead by a subservient US media

Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are accusing Tehran of developing nuclear weapons and exporting terrorism, just as Saddam Hussein was allegedly doing. Iran is also not abiding by U N resolutions on its nuclear weapons program, which, like Iraq then, it denies it has. UN Nuclear Agency in Vienna has found no proof of a weapons program .Neither there was one in Iraq in 2003. Almost all accusations made by US President , his deputy and others , exaggerated by US corporate owned media proved to be false.

Energy is at the centre of Russia's strategic partnership with the European Union. Oil is the cause of its struggle with the US over the routes of pipelines from the Caspian and Central Asia –Le Monde.

Moscow's relations with the Middle East during the Cold War were mostly focused on socialist and nationalist regimes, ranged against Kingdoms and conservative Western allies, but USSR's collapse and its disintegration saw its influence shrink. Now a coherent Russian Federation around an Orthodox Slav core, minus the old ideological, ethnic and religious mixed baggage, under an astute President Vladimir Putin has assiduously re-built, almost from a scratch ,its influence in the region, and taking advantage of the follies of the Bush administration, is broad banding relationships from Rabat to Riyadh.

"We could expect an epic battle between Shi'ite extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country [Iraq] - and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict." President George Bush in his State of Union address.

" Mr Bush looks increasingly like a general who has run out of ideas, troops and hope ." Commented 'The Guardian'

US led western talk of a Shia-Sunni war looks troublingly real, although the option is now on slow backburner. The policy of divide and rule is as old as the Roman empire – a constant guide to the Christian West and implemented ruthlessly during its colonial onslaught on the rest of the world. Evolution of Western nationalism based on a narrow definition of shared religion, ethnicity, language, culture or history after centuries of religious and ethnic wars was then employed to divide multi religious and pluralistic empires and kingdoms in the East and South during its crusade of colonial wars and expansion, masked as 'civilizing mission ' or 'white man's burden' 'or 'saving the soul' by converting natives to Christianity.

Iran Pardons Blair's Dozen and Jane Bond "U.K. has suspended boarding operations in the northern Persian Gulf while the Royal Navy reviewed its procedures " First Sea Lord Admiral Jonathon Bond (no relation of James Bond).

Iranian Chess Masters Choreograph the Crisis End;It was a virtuoso almost flawless choreography which ended the two week long Iran-UK crisis (with USA lurking at the back and Europe not far behind) following the James Bond like British intelligence intrusion into Iranian waters. Even the Times online admitted "The captives, including Leading Seaman Faye Turney, 26, were released yesterday in a stunning piece of political theatre by President Ahmadinejad, who brought a bizarre but welcome end to a 13-day drama that held the possibility of violent escalation."

A senior US General in Iraq to Gen Taguba --" the abused detainees were 'only Iraqis.'"

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world : Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

"From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values."US Gen Antonio Taguba.

"Be nice to America, otherwise we will bring you democracy." A bumper sticker in New York"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." Albert Camus "Television images showed a man running down a smoke-filled street in Baghdad holding a lifeless baby above his head. Smoke was rising off the baby."

"Four years ago, the United States, Great Britain and Spain, the axis of liars, had proclaimed from every grandstand that with Iraq bursting at the seams with weapons of mass destruction, as well as being a haven of peace for al-Qaeda members, it was necessary at all costs to assault Baghdad. In so doing, they hoped to put an end to the actions of the terrorist network. The result ?

Iraq is prey to a high-intensity civil war; the Taliban and their accomplices have reduced Hamid Karzai's function to that of mayor of Kabul and Osama bin Laden is still at large. The axis of liars doubles as a "conspiracy of imbeciles." The Fiasco by Serge Truffaut in Le Devoir in April 2007

Arun Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of the M K Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence was forced to resign from the institute attached to RochesterUniversity following accusations of being anti-Semitic. He had written on 7 January in the Washington Post

"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy

31/03/06 "ICH" -- - When I went back to Ankara in late 1992 to head the Indian Embassy, many of my friends from the Turkish Foreign Office from my 1969-73 tenure as First Secretary, were going out as ambassadors to newly independent states in Central Asia and the Baltic, following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Looking at the creation of so many new missions, a cheeky young Turkish diplomat in the Foreign Ministry said rather mischievously than hopefully, that only if United States of America broke up into 50 independent states, could he ever hope to head like them a Turkish Embassy, in north America. --

But the wish of the young diplomat is not going to be fulfilled any time soon, if ever. But still—

"Credit easing does not and cannot substitute for earnings, wages or tax revenues." Max Fraad Wolff

"The [US] financial system is out of control and has led the economy into a wildly turbulent sea of heavily leveraged speculation.-- the road ahead is dark and unknown." Steve Fraser author of" Wall Street: America's DreamPalace."

"Before the US economy can truly begin to expand again, the savings rate must rise to pre-bubble levels of 8pc--$2 trillion of household debt must be eliminated", Economist David Rosenberg

Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both." Said US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis 80 years ago.

"Over-grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." --George Washington (1732-1799), First US President.

"[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." --Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US President, Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961

"This war [in Iraq] is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. ... it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad." — Thomas Friedman in New York Times 30 November, 2003.

"Despite the agreement with Iraq, the United States would continue to have fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2012. --The reality is that we're going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan." Gen. George Casey, US Army chief of staff on May 26, 2009.First transfer of 'Sovereignty' to Iraq on 28 June, 2004People and media have such short memories. The first charade of transfer of sovereignty to Iraq was conducted in a secret, short and pre-poned ceremony from 30 June to 28 June in Baghdad.

London's 'The Independent' of 6 October has focused attention on the coming fall of US hegemony beginning with the pressure on US dollar, following the not so secret meetings between Arab states, China, Russia, Japan and France to stop use of the US currency for oil trading. Its intrepid correspondent Robert Fisk points to a incoming epochal financial paradigm with the Gulf Arabs along with China, Russia, Japan and France moving to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese Yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. "The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold."

" History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role" - Leo Tolstoy

"When empires fall, their currencies fall first. Even clearer is the rising debt of empires in decline, because in most cases their physical expansion is financed with debt"- Rolf Nef, Manager, Tell Gold & Silver Fund, Zurich

Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, we are seeing the beginnings of the collapse of the other Wall (Street), financial nerve centre of recently described the New Rome. But these are just blips in the history of West-East confrontation like the Chinese Yin Yang. The decline and coming fall of the US led Western hegemony was brought home by the 2008 September collapse of Lehman brothers, Merrill Lynch and other venerable US and Western financial institutions, thus beginning an era of power shift, perhaps, for the passing of the baton from the West to the East. Washington's debt amounts to over $ 8 trillion while its GDP is around 14 trillion. The creditors are discussing replacing US dollar as the reserve currency with a basket of currencies. US led West is deeply mired in the Iraqi quagmire and enmeshed into a non-winnable war in Afghanistan, the graveyard of many empires in history.